The present invention relates, in general, to the field of motor vehicles.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Motor vehicles are known of single-seater type or multi-seater type with varying loading capacity. The length of the motor vehicles is hereby unchangeably fixed by the manufacturer. As a result, many motor vehicles are selected in dependence on the number of seats or loading capacity that is needed at a maximum. However, oftentimes the capacity is not fully utilized during daily use. In particular when city traffic is involved, there is a need to be able to shorten the motor vehicle, when for example the rear seat is not occupied.
The firm Rinspeed developed a prototype of a roadster, called Presto, that can be transformed from a two-seater to a four-seater with room for two further rear seats by shifting the rear body part in relation to the front body part. Because of the open configuration of the roadster, there are drawbacks as the roadster cannot be closed and, as the vehicle body is movable within one another, there are no doors so that the vehicle can be entered only by jumping from outside into the interior of the vehicle.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved motor vehicle which obviates prior art shortcomings and which has a variable seating capacity despite a closed configuration while allowing comfortable entry.